Finding Customers for Your Consulting Business

Topics to be covered

What you will learn
- Use word of mouth
- Give away free samples of your work
- Consider volunteering
- Recognize that not everyone will contact you by email
- Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit
- Addendum: Keeping your existing customers happy

Here’s some information from the organizer of this webinar. I’m putting it here so I can reference it as I develop my talk.

Hello ASA Community:

The Statistical Consulting Section would like to invite you to attend our webinar focused on private statistical consultants. Steve Simon, Ph.D. will present strategies for finding paying customers for your statistical consulting business.

Title: Finding Customers for Your Consulting Business Presenter: Steve Simon, Ph.D. Date & Time: May 02, 2024, at 12pm ET Registration Link: Click here to register Abstract:

You are starting a new career as an independent statistical consultant. Congratulations! One of your early concerns will be how to find paying customers. Here are some strategies. 1. Use word of mouth, one person telling another person about who you are and what you do. You can do this with friends, family, and professional colleagues. You can use a current customer to help you find new customers. I will explain how to do this carefully, so you don’t get labeled a pest (or worse, a spammer). 2. Give away free samples of your work. Write about things that illustrate your knowledge and experience. In addition to traditional writing avenues, consider a blog post or an email newsletter. I will provide guidance on how to do this effectively without spending an inordinate amount of your time. 3. Consider volunteering. There are many opportunities where you can help out in a way gets you known by others, both direct customers and people who can refer customers to you. I will discuss some of the more helpful volunteer choices that maximize your visibility and credibility. 4. Recognize that not everyone will find you by email. I will discuss some of the alternative channels of communications that your customers might use. 5. Most importantly, turn all of these efforts into regular work habits. Pacing is important. Don’t do a flurry of work and then burn out.

About the Presenter:

Steve Simon received a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Iowa in 1982. He currently runs a small consulting business, P.Mean Consulting, as a sole proprietorship. He is also a faculty member in the Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He has over 100 peer-reviewed publications, four of which have won major awards. He has written one book, Statistical Evidence in Medical Trials, and a book chapter, R for Big Data Analysis, in Big Data Analysis for Bioinformatics and Biomedical Discoveries. He is the author of a major website and blog about Statistics, Research Design, and Evidence Based Medicine, with well over 2,000 pages. It is currently being consolidated under a uniform format using blogdown. He is president of the Kansas City R Users Group and is looking for speakers for future Zoom meetings. His current research interests include using Bayesian models to forecast patient accrual in clinical trials and examining data sharing practices in peer-reviewed articles.

We hope you will consider attending this event.

Identify this movie

An annoying salesperson, Ned Ryerson, in the movie, Groundhog Day

Use word of mouth

Birth announcement
Current customers
Staying in touch

Birth announcement

“I’m embarking on a new career move, starting a small statistical consulting business, P.Mean Consulting. I’m so excited. Wish me luck.” Send to
- Family,
- Friends,
- Colleagues from your former job
- Former professors from your degree program
Use email and/or social media
Send only once

Thank you note

“Thanks for involving me in this interesting project. If you have anything similar in the future, I’d love to continue our collaboration.”
- Send one week/one month after final payment
- Send only once

Stay in regular touch

No direct solicitation
- “I heard that your youngest is leaving for college. What’s it like being an empty nester?”
- “I bet your whole town is celebrating with two straight Super Bowl victories.”
- “I saw this NYTimes article about long COVID, and it reminded me of your work.”
Not too often, every six months?

You should stay in regular touch with anyone you have been working with in the past. You want them to remember who you are in case they come across a new project where you might be able to help.

More importantly, you also want them to remember who you are when they are talking to their colleagues both within their company and colleagues from other companies. They’re having a lunchtime discussion When lunch partner says how much trouble they are having putting together a DSMB, a Data and Safety Monitoring Board, you want your name to be a name that they remember.

So find an excuse to stay in touch. Don’t pull a Ned Ryerson and try to hit your client bases with a direct solicitation. Find something else to email them about. It can be something about them: Ask them about their kids, their pets.

It could be something about where they live. Kansas City is a football town and we’re always glad to hear from those jealous fans in Buffalo and Cincinnati.

One recommendation I really like is finding an article in a journal or newspaper that relates to what they do and sharing it with them.

Don’t do this too often. Judge this by the particular person you have worked with, but I would suggest no more often than twice a year.

Business cards

Hand out at every event
- “Good to chat with you. Here’s a card. Call me or email me if you want to talk some more.”
Write something on the back
- “Ethics code for research”
Take their cards and follow-up
- Business card = one (but only one) free spam
- “I just wanted to say again how much I enjoyed your talk”

I always forget to take business cards with me. You get five thousand of these at a pop and I always move to a new job/office before I use a hundred of them.

Get in the habit of ending a conversation by handing out your card. Write something on the back so they will remember what the conversation was about.

When you get a card, don’t do what I do, and toss it in your desk drawer in the vain hope that you will find it six months from now when you realize that you need to contact this person again.

Send an email out the day after the conversation and offer a compliment. That way, you’ll have both the card, and a message in your sent folder, doubling the chances that you can retrieve their contact information six months down the road.

People often don’t like getting a lot of emails, but if they hand you a card with their email address on it, they can’t complain if you send one message afterwards.

Just don’t press your luck by sending two, unless they respond positively to your first email.

Email ticklers

Signature file
- “New career! P.Mean Consulting”
- “P.Mean Consulting. Now in our second year of business”
- Short and sweet
Configure your email name
- Not “Steve Simon”, use “Steve Simon, P.Mean Consulting”

Break #1

What you have learned
- Use word of mouth
What’s coming next
- Give away free samples of your work
Any questions?
What have you done in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Charlie (Peter Ostrum) finding a golden ticket in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Give away free samples of your work

Writing
- Books
- Newsletters
- Blog posts
Talks
- For statisticians
- For non-statisticians
- Let others promote your work

Write a book

Not easy and not for everyone
Much greater impact than journal articles
Self publishing option?

When you write a book about Statistics, don’t expect a huge royalty stream. The money goes to authors who can write about vampires that sparkle in the sunlight. What you get is a lot of visibility.

I have to mention books here because they have such a big impact. Not everyone can write a book and writing a whole book is not easy. But the payback that you get from a book is far greater than what you get from writing journal articles.

I wrote a book in 2006, and it opened a lot of doors for me.I got invitations to talk in London and Amsterdam through that book. I was asked to testify in a court case based on something in my book.

My book was published by Oxford University Press, and boy that sounds impressive. More importantly, it insured that my book would get a handful of reviews, which (thankfully), were mostly positive.

You should try for a publisher, but self publishing is an easy option these days.

Publish a newsletter

Use an established vendor
- Formal unsubscribe mechanism
Publish regularly
- Monthly or less often

I had a newsletter, The Monthly Mean, that I sent out for several years, and I got several hundred subscribers. It had a couple of original articles, a recommended book, article, or website, and interesting quote, and a brief story about our son, Nick. I had to abandon it because of time pressure, but I got a lot of good publicity while it was going. It really helped me stay in touch with a lot of important people.

If you want to do a newsletter, pay to use a commercial email service. They will provide a professional look to your newsletter. More importantly, they will provide a trustworthy way for people to subscribe and unsubscribe. It is well worth the investment.

For a newsletter to be effective, it has to appear regularly. Don’t try to publish too often. It may get annoying and besides, you might burn out after just a few issues. Certainly no more than monthly. If I had to do it over again, I would have limited my newsletter to quarterly.

Create a blog

Similar to newsletters
- Indexed by search engines
- More impact than journal article
Publish regularly, but not too often
- Fresh content
- Recommendations
Stay away from politics

I wrote a website back in 1998 and turned it into a blog about ten years later. A blog is a lot like a newsletter, but it has the added advantage of getting indexed by search engines like Google and Bing.

It takes work to publish a blog. Make sure that you publish regularly, but not too often. There’s little value to send out a flurry of blog posts for the first month, then get burned out and not publish anything for the next three years.

For my website and blog, I tried to average one or two articles a week. That’s more than I would recommend to most people. But do spend some time at least once a month.

Because I started a website and blog so many years ago, I now have over two thousand pages. The quality is uneven, and many pages need a serious overhaul. But I have gotten a lot of business from people who first found me through my website and blog.

It is hard to provide fresh content on a regular basis, but it helps to supplement your content with recommendations from other websites, journals, newspaper articles, and books. Think of this as sort of an annotated bibliography. Put in a link and a description no longer than a single paragraph. People love it when they get a hint as to what lies behind that bright blue underlined hyperlink.

You will be tempted to talk about politics on your blog. Don’t do it! Half the people will love what you write and half the people will hate what you write, but you will lose ten times more business opportunities from the people that hate you than you will get from the people that love you.

If you must talk politics, set up a totally separate blog where you share your opinions about Donald Trump. Keep a thick firewall between the two blogs.

Give talks

Client audiences
Statistical audiences
- Other statisticians will often send you referrals.

Let others promote your work, 1 of 4

Suggested introduction text that illustrates some opportunities for promoting your business

Let others promote your work, 2 of 4

…He currently runs a small consulting business, P.Mean Consulting, as a sole proprietorship…

Let others promote your work, 3 of 4

…He is president of the Kansas City R Users Group and is looking for speakers for future Zoom meetings…

Let others promote your work, 4 of 4

His current research interests include using Bayesian models to forecast patient accrual in clinical trials and examining data sharing practices in peer-reviewed articles.

Break #2

What you have learned
- Give away free samples of your work
What’s coming next
- Consider volunteering
Any questions?
What have you done in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) from the movie, Election

Volunteering

Similar to giving away free samples
- Officer in an organization
- Committee work
- Pro bono work
Strive for high visibility work
Don’t volunteer unless you can do a good job

Officer in an organization

Client-rich organizations
ASA offices
- Related positions
Committee work

There are many organizations that need volunteers to run them. Look for organizations that have lots of people who might be potential clients. This is a bit tricky because you might be perceived as an outsider and not qualified. But if you find a chance to take any role, even a small one in an organization like the Midwest Society for Pediatric Research, you will find yourself meeting and working with people who might like you enough to hire you.

Becoming an officer in an organization like the American Statistical Association is easier, and don’t discount the fact that other statisticians are often a prime source for new clients that they can’t work with or that they don’t want to work with. You could start with your local ASA chapter, or you could involve yourself in the work of a group like the Statistical Consulting Section of the ASA.

There are other positions like the ASA that you should consider. I am president of the Kansas City R Users Group, and that means I get to introduce the speakers at every meeting, and I send out emails under my name publicizing the meetings. Better still, many people will presume that the president of the Kansas City R Users Group knows more about R programming than anyone else in the Kansas City area. Not true, but I’m not going to tell them that.

In any organization, being an officer is high visibility, but other committee work might still be effective. Strive for something like a newsletter committee where your name might end up in the masthead.

Pro bono work

Statistics Without Borders
- Steve Pierson, Gary Shapiro, Jim Cochran, Fritz Scheuren
Stats4Good
- David Corliss
Informal efforts
- Find a cause you believe in
Never offer free consulting to a potential paying client

There are a couple of organizations where you can do really interesting work. The Statistics Without Borders group was established in 2008 and provides a lot of assistance to help promote human welfare in locations that can’t afford to pay for help.

Another group is Stats4Good, run by David Corliss.

It’s a great way to build your resume. Be sure to brag about your work. Pro bono work is often very intriguing.

you can also find a Pro Bono effort on your own. I was at a talk where someone presented work of her group providing medical care to homeless people. I stopped by to chat with her afterwards, and mentioned offered my assistance if she ever needed help on Statistics, such as building an evaluation plan to measure the benefits of her group’s work. I just did this a month ago, but it looks like I might have a nibble.

Now be sure to never offer free consulting to someone that you hope to turn into a paying client. Once they get used to getting something for free, you’ll never get them to pay for your services.

I do offer the first hour of consulting for free, and I do point clients towards web pages that I have written that relate to their work. But nothing more than that.

Strive for high visibility work

Some volunteer work is largely anonymous
- Peer review
- Grants committees

Don’t voluneer unless you can do a good job

Avoid efforts that you hate
Avoid efforts you don’t have time for

Break #3

What you have learned
- Consider volunteering
What’s coming next
- Recognize that not everyone will contact you by email
Any questions?
What have you done in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Movie poster of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail

Recognize that not everyone will contact you by email

Falling out of fashion with younger generations
Social media
- LinkedIn
- X (Twitter)

I love email. A day without email is a day without sunshine. Even the spam is fun. But not everyone uses email to communicate.

Many social media apps have an alternate channel for communication. I have to confess that I hate LinkedIn. It is overflowing with headhunters who have a wonderful career opportunity that just might be right for you.

But I’ve gotten a couple of clients through LinkedIn. They see my profile and send me a message that I have to figure out how to read and how to reply to.

I don’t use Twitter, now called X, but it is also a common method to send private messages.

There may be other social media out there, anyone want to comment? I’m on Facebook a lot. The biggest time sink ever invented. But it is a lot of fun. I must say though, that I have never gotten any work in spite of all my Facebook posts.

Accept payment from alternate sources

Standard for most is invoicing
Alternatives
- Paypal, Venmo

Break #4

What you have learned
- Recognize that not everyone will contact you by email
What’s coming next
- Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit
Any questions?
What have you done in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Sister Mary Clarence (Whoopi Goldberg) from the movie Sister Act

Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit

Regularity is critical
Choose a primary effort
- Secondary efforts only support your primary effort
Keep the time commitments manageable

Don’t adopt all of the ideas I have proposed here, but if you do adopt an idea, make a regular commitment. Don’t do a flurry of activity. Pace yourself to avoid burnout. At the same time, carve out time, maybe a few hours every week where you focus exclusively on efforts to improve your visibility and to get your name out in front of people who can become your customers.

It’s important to identify a primary effort. Don’t spread yourself too thinly. Pick something. Let’s say it is your newsletter. If that’s the case, make sure that you get a plug in for your newsletter on those occasions when you find yourself giving a talk. Use social media mostly to publicize your newsletter. Include a subscription link in the signature file of your emails.

Your goal is to try to funnel all your secondary efforts toward that primary effort.

Be sure to keep the time commitments manageable. Don’t volunteer so much that you don’t have time to do work for pay. Certainly no more than 25% of your time. A target of 10% might be better for some people.

Break #5

What you have learned
- Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit
What’s coming next
- Addendum: Keeping your existing customers happy
Any questions?
What have you in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Image of Anton Ego (voiced by Peter O'Toole) in the movie Ratatouille

Keep your existing customers happy

Three things to be careful about
- Time
- Money
- Quality

I was talking with another consultant about this upcoming talk and he said, you know, I don’t work very hard to find new clients. I work at keeping the existing clients.

I had not thought about it that way, and to be honest, I am not very good at keeping clients long term.

I asked another consultant who came up with three things that you have to be careful about and he immediately came up with a list of three things: time, money, and quality.

Make sure that you honor any time commitments that you make. This starts with setting those time limits carefully at the start.

Avoid cost overruns. If the project costs more than you said it would make sure that you have a darned good reason and that your client agrees. If you can’t get agreement, then you may be better off eating the cost overrun yourself.

Make sure that everything you produce is high quality. Avoid rework.

More ways to keep your existing customers happy

Bill regularly
Avoid hobby-shopping
Be honest about your limitations
Make them less dependent on you

I can add a few extra insights. I tend to be sloppy about sending out invoices, and this is a big problem. I don’t need to worry about cash flow on my end, but it is often a consideration on the other end. Don’t waiting three or four months and then sock your client with a Godizilla sized bill.

Watch out for hobby shopping. Hobby shopping is a that I learned when I was working at a government research laboratory. It is when you use government funds to work on things that you find interesting, but which have no value for the research mission of the laboratory.

As a consultant, you have to give the client what they want and what they need. But if you want to try a new approach just because it looks fun, resist the temptation. Or do the work on your own dime.

Be honest with your client. They may have high expectations from your work, but let them know that sometimes a study is a bust with all the p-values larger than 0.05. Yes, I know that negative studies are just as valuable as positive studies. But if your client has pie-in-the-sky expectations, you want to give then an early dose of the reality of statistics, especially if their sample size is quite marginal.

The other thing that I do believe quite strongly helps in keeping customers is to make them less dependent on you. Teach them how to do some of the basic analyses themselves. Show them how to choose among competing methods. For some clients this will actually bring them back to you more often because they enjoy developing a sense of self mastery. You get the side benefit that when they do see you, they present not the boring stuff, not the mundane stuff, not the simple stuff/ They eventually end up presenting the really challenging stuff-problems that they still are unable to master. That’s when things get really fun.

Use word of mouth

Give away free samples of your work

Consider volunteering

Recognize that not everyone will contact you by email

Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit

Keep your existing customers happy”

Summary

What you have learned
- Use word of mouth
- Give away free samples of your work
- Consider volunteering
- Recognize that not everyone will contact you by email
- Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit
- Addendum: Keeping your existing customers happy
Any questions?
What have you found helpful?